“I am not gone. I am interested. There is a difference.”
“There really isn’t. Not with you.” She pulls me into a hug that smells like charcoal and terrible coffee. “Be careful. I mean it. Not the careful where you nod at me and then do whatever you want. Actually careful.”
“I am always careful.”
“You are never careful. You are just good at landing on your feet.” She squeezes me once and lets go. “Now, get out of my office before your scent makes my students lose their minds.”
My nose scrunches up in protest but she’s not wrong. It’s unusually sweet and starting to coat everything in this room. Just the anticipation of meeting up with Sai is making my body act out. I can’t be sure if I love or hate it.
The ride home becomes twenty minutes of pressing my thighs together and failing to think about anything except Sai Hollis. The sandalwood fantasy I’ve been running on a loop since last night keeps resurfacing, his throat under my mouth, his pulse hammering against my lips and every stop makes the situation worse. By the time I reach my station, I’m walking the three blocks home with a stride that has less to do with confidence and more to do with the fact that slowing down would mean acknowledging how wet I’m getting. I refuse to acknowledge that on a public sidewalk.
Blowing out a heavy breath, I jog up the stairs, needing some momentum only to find him in the hallway when I open the door.
He’s standing at his door with keys in hand, silk shirt buttoned to the throat and sleeves rolled to the forearm, looking like an advertisement for something expensive and devastating. I have about four seconds to arrange my face into something more neutral before he turns around.
Our eyes meet and I watch his reaction happen in real time: pupils blowing wide, nostrils flaring as my scent hits him at close range, and his hand clenching around his keys until his knuckleslighten a fraction. His jaw locks as his breathing shallows, his entire body going still.
His mouth opens like he’s going to say something and nothing comes out, just his lips parting around a word that never makes it. He is so beautiful standing there unable to function that something in my chest tightens in a way I wasn’t prepared for.
“Afternoon, neighbor.” I muse, absolutely enthralled by this version of Sai. I expected my fantasy to be dashed, for him to suddenly be the dominant version of an Alpha I didn’t want. But it’s almost like he’s made for me, this shy, awkward Alpha unable to find his voice in front of an Omega.
His mouth tries again and manages “hi” in a voice so low and rough and scraped raw that the sound of it sends heat straight down my spine and pools it between my hips.
The plan was to walk past, leave the scent, and let him ache for however long until he broke on his own and came to me. That’s how this was supposed to work. Patient. Strategic. The long game where I stay in control.
Two steps past him and his scent hits me full in the chest, my body reacting before my mind can stop it. Slick gathers along my inner thighs, drenching the thong, the suddenness so sharp I have to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from making a sound. My own scent thickens in the air without permission, his scent responding in tandem.
Sandalwood crashes into me, so deeply masculine that my knees go soft for half a second before I lock them. It fills my lungs, coats the inside of my mouth, and sinks straight through my skin to settle low in my belly. I’m getting wet, not the slow build I can usually control but something much worse. The thin fabric of my pants is going to be a problem very soon if I don’t keep walking.
Keep it moving Mavi. You’re in control,I remind myself, though it doesn’t feel like it.
Every instinct I have is screaming at me to turn around and put my mouth on that man’s throat, to taste the salt of his skin, to feel the way the sandalwood would concentrate at his pulse point, to hear the same low bitten desperate sound he makes through the wall when he comes, only this time right against my lips.
This wasn’t the plan but I’ve never caught this version of his scent up close. When I turn around Sai is still standing there, frozen, his eyes locked on me with the look of someone who already knows what’s about to happen to him and has stopped running.
My feet carry me back to him, both hands landing on his chest as I push him backward into the wall beside his door. His back hits the plaster with a loud thud. The sound he makes is louder, a low punched-out grunt that vibrates through my palms where they press flat against warm silk. Underneath the shirt his chest is hard and broad, his heart slamming so fast I can feel it against my skin.
Get control, Mavi. This isn’t the plan.
I swallow carefully, waiting for Sai to be just like every other Alpha but he doesn’t move. In fact, his hands stay at his sides, something dangerously close to submission lingering in his expression.
There’s no way.
Curious, I rise onto my toes, close the last inch, and take his mouth. The kiss is hard and demanding, Sai making a broken sound against my lips, the same raw desperate noise I have only ever heard through drywall.
His fingers twitch against his thighs, trembling with the effort of not touching me. The realization burns through me, this six-two Alpha who could pin me to any surface in this hallway has his hands at his sides because he does not know if he is allowed.
“Touch,” I murmur against his mouth.
His hands find my waist instantly, just holding like someone who has been told he can have something precious. His tongue slides against mine, the Alpha tasting like sandalwood, coffee, and something purely him, better than every filthy version I built in the dark last night. A small involuntary sound slips out of me and he swallows it like it belongs to him.
Heat pours through me so fast my head spins. My scent sweetens without permission, my body clenching hard as slick floods out of me, soaking through my pants and running down my inner thigh in seconds. I rock my hips forward, grinding against the thick line of his cock where it strains against my belly, desperate for friction, for more of him.
His hands stay on my waist, still not moving anywhere I haven’t told them to go. This Alpha waited. This Alpha obeyed and it’s making me lose my fucking mind.
My fingers dig into the front of his silk shirt, twisting the fabric as I kiss him deeper, chasing the taste of him. Another rush of slick pulses out of me, pulling a whimper from my lips, a small, needy sound I didn’t mean to make. The sound breaks through the haze and horror flashes through me. This wasn’t supposed to happen. I wasn’t supposed to lose control like this.
I pull back just far enough to see his face. His eyes are blown wide, lips wet and glossy from my mouth, breathing ragged. He looks completely undone.
